Photo: Contributed

A Penticton senior has pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm after charging at his wife with a kitchen knife in September 2019. 

Gunter Spoerlein, 78, was in court via telephone Thursday to enter his plea. The charge had previously been downgraded from attempted murder.

Court heard that on Sept. 6 2019, a seemingly normal breakfast between Gunter and his wife Bernadita turned suddenly and shockingly violent. 

According to Crown prosecutor John Swanson and not disputed by defence counsel Joanna Kelly, shortly before 8 a.m. that day Gunter became enraged, attacking Bernadita first with a coffee carafe and then chasing her into the bedroom with a kitchen knife, stabbing her repeatedly. 

Bernadita called the police, who arrived and were shocked to see her answer the door covered in blood. Gunter's rage had dissipated as quickly as it had begun. 

Gunter had suffered a stroke in 2016 that left him changed psychologically, according to Kelly, and likely left him in the early stages of a dementia that will continue to progress. 

"I may well have dealt with more tragic cases over the course of my career but I can't think of one off the top of my head," Swanson said. 

Swanson and Kelly put forward a joint submission, asking Judge Michelle Daneliuk for an 18 month conditional sentence followed by 18 months of additional probation.

Bernadita no longer lives with Gunter, who now has 24-hour care, but she was with him while he called in to court Thursday and maintains a loving relationship with him, expressing nothing but compassion for him and the health struggle that led him to the violent act. She herself now struggles with lack of mobility in her right hand, which received the worst stab wound, and has undergone multiple surgeries.

Gunter asked Kelly to read a statement on his behalf in court. 

"I sincerely regret [the actions] 1,000 times over. I wish it did not happen and I only ask my wife for forgiveness," Gunter wrote. 

Judge Daneliuk accepted the terms of the joint submission, noting the obvious strength of the couple's 50-year marriage and the lack of any criminal or violent history prior to Gunter's 2016 stroke.

She called the case "extremely tragic" and opined that if the stroke had not happened, Gunter would never have been in her courtroom.